1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a quality inspection apparatus for a sheet-shaped matter such as a sheet printed by an intaglio printing press.
2. Description of the Related Art
As for an intaglio printing press used to print bank notes, securities, and the like, it is a generally known practice that an inspection unit or the like provided upstream of a delivery point inspects the quality of printed matters printed by a printing apparatus (printing unit) immediately before the printed matters are delivered to a delivery apparatus (delivery unit).
For example, Patent Literature 1 discloses a sheet-fed rotary printing press including: gripper beams which are guided by chains, and which support grippers; and a gripper beam track which is arranged to be doubled in an upper-lower direction and which allows the gripper beams to make round trips therein. In this sheet-fed rotary printing press, a suction box having a flat suction surface facing the upper-side movement track is installed above the upper-side movement track of the grippers, whereas an optical/electronic camera system for printing quality control is installed right below the suction box and under the lower-side movement track of the grippers.
In addition, Patent Literature 2 discloses a sheet conveyance apparatus including: a vacuum-type sheet guiding element; at least one gripper system which grips the front edge of a sheet; and an inspection system which includes an optical scan system and the like. The sheet guiding element has a sheet guiding surface. The sheet guiding surface of the sheet guiding element extends approaching a conveyance plane surface of the gripper system in a conveyance direction. The sheet guiding surface of the sheet guiding element is curved into an arc with a radius Ra in the conveyance direction. A travelling path in the conveyance direction of the front edge of the sheet clamped by the gripper system is curved into an arc with a radius Rg. The two arcs cross each other at one point. The inspection system is installed to face the sheet guiding surface.